Here's a story I completed after graduate school but I think holds a place in my collection:
Ten minutes into mowing the front lawn, Wanda realized she mowed like she vacuumed – generally straight, but if something caught her eye, a dandelion or other tall weed, she’d run the lawn mower over it and back just as she would redirect the vacuum towards a string or crumb on the living room rug.
It had been a month since Richard, her husband, passed. The first week after his death she’d been in efficient, to-do-list mode: funeral arrangements, seeing to out-of-town guests, choosing a charity in lieu of flowers, calling the boy down the street to mow her lawn. But that first time she sat alone in her house three days after the funeral, the noise of all the children, grandchildren, and other visitors gone, she’d felt it. A wall growing up around herself. Without Richard’s soft snoring while he napped on the couch and she read on the recliner, without Richard’s warm body stretched next to her in the bed, without Richard at the seat beside her at dinner, resalting what she’d already seasoned, without Richard… She didn’t want any more change. She didn’t want any more people near her. She wanted to be with herself. She hadn’t cried since the funeral and she didn’t know what to make of that. She didn’t know what to make of any of her feelings.
Then came the two weeks of soap operas and dimmed lights. She kept the shades drawn and stayed in her bathrobe only leaving the house to replenish her ice cream and microwave popcorn supplies. But even lounging felt exhausting, avoiding so many phone calls, worrying about what her friends were thinking, conjuring excuses for missing church two Sundays and Wednesday nights in a row. Creating more excuses for missing Sunday afternoon bell choir practice. In a week school would resume and she’d have to return to work so Wanda developed a compromise to help herself ease back into a life. She decided she would get off the couch, but she wasn’t ready for people yet. Cleaning – fine. Small talk – no way. In that week she boxed up Richard’s clothing and arranged for it to be taken to Good Will. By Sunday she was ready to tackle the lawn, a task never before attempted in her fifty-five years of living.
Wanda had been the first in her circle of friends to marry. She met Richard her sophomore year at Chapel Hill in the Baptist Student Center. The summer before their senior year they married. It seemed to silly to wait longer, after all they were Baptists and avoiding premarital sex was difficult. Their senior year they chuckled thinking they were the only two who could leave the Baptist Student Center’s Thursday night supper and Bible study and go home to romp in the bedroom. Well, without sinning, anyway.
Aside from one divorce, Wanda was also the first of her friends to reenter the world of singleness. Married at twenty-one, widowed after thirty-four years. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. For their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary they were supposed to take a cruise to Alaska. Richard wasn’t allowed to die until eighty-five or older and even then, she’d planned they’d go together, holding hands in their sleep. He’d cheated her out of thirty years.
After finishing the front lawn Wanda had to go inside for ice water. She made a mental note to start the lawn earlier in the morning next time. It was entirely too hot outside. Then she thought about that. Next time. Would she become the permanent lawn mower? It was August. The lawn would have to be mowed into October. Her friends had offered their spouses. She could probably afford to pay someone. But the exercise was good, she hadn’t sweated this much since, well probably since the mission trip they went on with the church three years back to build a little cinder block house for a Mexican family. She’d have to think about this lawn mowing business some more.
The phone rang. Before Richard’s death, it rang maybe a few times a day, often a solicitor, but now it seemed to ring on the hour, every hour. Always someone checking in on her. She let the machine pick up, still Richard’s cheerful voice, “You’ve reached the Turners, but we’re not about to answer the phone right now. It’s gonna beep, then you know what to do.”
The voice of her daughter, Kathleen, followed, “Mom, you home? Why don’t you ever answer your phone? Screening your calls from too many well-wishing church ladies? It’s me-eee.” She paused. “Fine. Maybe you’re out. I’m still planning on coming down Friday after work. Call me.”
Wanda downed the last of her water, wiped her hands and forehead with a kitchen towel and returned to the mower so she could start on the backyard. She opened the gate and pushed it through then she abandoned the machine to prepare the yard. First she marched around and picked up sticks and pinecones. Next she returned inside to scrounge in her pantry for plastic bags so she could de-dog-poop the yard. As she entered she heard her son’s voice mid-message, “Lindsay and I were talking about coming done for a weekend. Give you some time with Clara while we go to the beach. Let me know.”
Undoubtedly her children had conspired and she was going to be subjected to getting babysat on the weekends even if it was under the pretense that she’d do the babysitting. Her son, Garrison, lived in Manteo, near his wife’s parents. They could go to the beach anytime. They didn’t need her Wilmington shoreline for that.
After cleaning up the backyard to her satisfaction she
returned to the lawn mower and cranked it up, but three
rows in, the machine sputtered and coughed. She managed
another half row before the machine died. Maybe
something had gotten stuck? She titled it back and tried
to peer underneath then slammed the mower back down
hoping to dislodge whatever it was. She yanked at the
chord to start it up again but it Only offered one smoky
hiccup. Gas. Maybe it was out of Gas. Did they have
extra gas in the garage?
She walked back to the front of the house where she’d left the garage door open and scanned the room. Richard had kept an organized garage. Yard tools hung against one wall, a workbench lined the adjacent wall, and next to it home-made shelves filled with supplies: paint brushes, bug spray, weed killer, duct tape, full size trash bags and more. She glanced to the vacant spot where the lawn mower had been parked. Next to it, on the floor, sat a red plastic container. She lifted it and felt the weight of a few gallons then unscrewed the black cap and smelled. Bingo. Gasoline.
Carrying the container, she headed back to the mower and unscrewed a similar black cap located on its top. She tilted the red container so that it would pour in. Gasoline splashed onto her hands just as her hair fell into her face.
“Crap,” she mumbled, tilting back the container. She tried using her upper arms to brush back the hair but couldn’t get all of her thick brown bob back so she carefully nudged the stray strands behind her ears, the smell of gasoline burning as it came near her eyes and nose. As she prepared to try pouring again, she felt a burning sensation on her shins.
“Crap! Crap! Shit!” Wanda jumped back at the site of red ants climbing above her sock line and chomping at her legs. She began hopping around and one spastic foot shot forth and knocked over the gas container. Slapping at her legs, she cussed all the while. Her fingers flew to the laces and began to pull. Within seconds her socks and shoes were off and she danced over to the garden hose. She blasted her legs with the water and stood there not noticing as she flooded the mulch in a bed of daylilies behind her. She brought the hose over her head and doused her sweaty body.
“Wanda! Wanda?” Wanda heard the voice coming from the front yard, then the heads of the Bryans peered over the gate. Bruce Bryan was the deacon leader of her Sunday school class and his wife Hillary always planned the socials, usually potluck suppers. Bruce unlatched the gate and opened it for his wife. The two walked towards Wanda.
“Good heavens what are you doing?” said Hillary.
Wanda looked around. A partially mowed yard, lawn mower stopped midway, a kicked over container of gasoline, shoes and socks tossed about and herself, soaking wet, holding the garden hose, mulch sticking to her feet.
“Just doing some yard work.” She reached over and turned the water off then tucked the hose back on its reel.
Bruce stepped forward, “You know you don’t need to be doing that. Men from the class will be happy to take turns on your yard till you find something more permanent.”
“I
appreciate the offer.”
Hillary smiled, “Appreciate it
and take him up on it! Look at
you!”
Wanda tugged at the t-shirt she was wearing and twisted the front to ring out some of the water. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.
“We were just in the neighborhood and we missed you at church this morning. Thought we’d say hello.” said Hillary.
The whole world is in on the plot to not leave me alone for one second, thought Wanda.
“Just wanted to see if you needed anything and make sure everything was all right,” Bruce paused, “as all right as it can be.”
“I’m fine. Just needed some downtime after all the relatives and the busyness with… all the arrangements.”
Hillary stepped closer and touched Wanda’s hand. “We understand, but you need to lean on your friends too.”
Wanda smiled. “I know, thank you.”
“So I’ll send Bruce back by tomorrow to finish up your lawn?”
Bruce walked over to the gasoline container and rescrewed the cap. He handed it to his wife.
“We’ll take this, fill it up for you and I can be back tomorrow ‘round 4.” He put the cap back on the mower’s gas tank and pushed it towards the garage. Wanda reached for her shoes and socks and followed them into the front yard. Bruce parked the mower and then he and Hillary climbed into his oversized SUV and drove out of sight.
Wanda rated her
first attempt at lawn mowing a C+ then prepared herself a milkshake before
taking a shower and retiring to the couch where she watched home decorating
shows until falling asleep.
The next afternoon when Wanda returned from her first day back to work she decided to tackle another project. She changed out of the long dark dress she’d worn to her job as an office assistant at the elementary school and stepped into some sweat pants. She’d had to wear looser clothing because when she first tried to put on dress slacks that morning they were too hard to button after her weeks of poor eating. Still, she refused to step on a scale to gage her damage. Who was there to look good for? She just didn’t want to have to go out to buy all new clothes. Hanging up the dress, she deliberated having a salad for dinner but knew this would require a trip to the grocery store. Next week, she thought.
She walked to her dresser and leafed to the bottom where she kept her work shirts. Bruce would be over in an hour and that thought irritated her. The only man she wanted to rely on was Richard and if she couldn’t have Richard then she wanted to figure out a way to do things herself. If God wanted her to be independent then fine. She’d rise to the challenge. The ant bites on her ankles itched and Wanda propped her leg on the bed to scratch them.
She emerged from her bedroom and set out to find her yellow rubber gloves. She’d been noticing some grime collecting in her dishwasher, so she decided to start there figuring she could wipe down the seems with bleach and pour some more bleach into the net at the bottom and she’d be done. A project completed. Wanda poured and watched. She waited, poured again, and waited again. The bleach didn’t seem to do the trick, so she knelt down on the cool tile and peered into the machine to flick at the darkest spot on the net. Nothing happened.
The kitchen phone
mounted on the wall above her head began ringing but Wanda ignored it. Shortly Hillary chirped that Bruce was on
his way over and she’d sent a lasagna with him.
“I want to make sure you’re
eating!” said Hillary.
“Oh, I’m eating,” mumbled Wanda to herself. She rolled out the bottom dish rack and set it down on the floor then pulled up on the spinner to get to the net. She tugged gently and it gave easily so she pulled it off.
“Oh gross.” The underside of the net was covered in slime. Presuming it to be food debris now unrecognizable, Wanda held her breath and tried not to look too closely. To make matters worse, the section she’d just uncovered was full of water. She mused about clogging and then scolded herself for only finding ridiculous, over-her-head projects. She could have simply dusted the bookcase, but no… The doorbell rang, so she peeled back her gloves and slapped them on the counter.
“Doing a little housework?” Bruce said when she opened the door.
Did she look that bad?
“I just need you to pop open that garage and I’ll be out of your hair. Oh and,” he nodded towards his hands then handed Wanda a casserole dish covered in aluminum foil, “Hillary sent this for you. She said you could eat some and freeze some.”
Wanda took the dish and thanked him. “I’ll get the garage.”
Once she heard the lawn mower buzzing in the back, Wanda returned to her kitchen dilemma. She needed to clear out the water so she grabbed the turkey baster to suck it up and a milk jug from her recycling container to dump it into. It didn’t take but five minutes but the goop that remained made her stomach churn. She knew she’d have to take each piece outside to the hose because there was no use sending the stuff down her kitchen sink and starting another clog but she’d have to wait till Bruce had gone. She didn’t want him knowing what she was up to, offering to save her from this problem as well.
Wanda didn’t know why exactly she felt so resistant to help, to people in general.
That evening she answered the phone when her daughter called yet again and managed to convince her to hold off another week before coming down. Maybe she liked asserting her independence. Maybe she feared the touch of grace that would send her back into her emotions. Maybe she was just bitter.
She enjoyed Hillary’s lasagna then set the rest of the pan on the floor and watched as her yellow Labrador, Mason, set to work. She liked the feeling of waste and irresponsibility as she watched him, the red sauce staining his light fur. She went to bed with her dishwasher still in pieces on the floor.
The next Sunday Wanda meant to go to church but didn’t. She hit the snooze button on her alarm clock, took a long shower, spent too much time deciding what to wear, and before she knew it the service had started and she hadn’t even located her car keys. So she made herself pancakes.
Later that morning the doorbell rang. Hillary and Janette, another lady from their Sunday school class, stood on her front porch in their skirts and blouses. Wanda considered not answering the door but knew this was ridiculous. Her silver Ford Taurus sat out front, so clearly she was home. As she walked toward the door she wondered if she could feign congestion to convince them she had a cold.
“I’d invite you in, but I don’t want to get you sick,” Wanda said after they’d greeted one another.
“You think it’s that flu bug going around?” Janette said.
“You know the beginning of the school year. It’s the worst for spreading new germs,” Wanda said.
“All those summer camp germs coming together. We go through so much Germ X in my room. It’s the only way to keep ‘em alive,” Hillary said. She taught third grade at another school. Wanda smiled in agreement.
“We’ll get off your porch, just wanted to say hello,” said Hillary.
“Tell the ladies I’ll be back in bell choir next week.” Wanda said, closing the door. If only the funeral hadn’t been so expensive. She could really use a spa vacation.
She knew she wouldn’t be bell choir next week, or possibly ever. Wanda had meant to fall back into her life but her intentions weren’t enough. Mason rubbed up against her leg and she reached down to tug on his ear absentmindedly. She had no idea what to do with her afternoon.
When her children visited two weekends in a row, Wanda attended church, had the strength to sit in her usual pew. With family beside her, she could simply pretend Richard had been called in to work in order to explain his absence. But when she didn’t have family in town, her attendance remained sporadic, then dwindled to nothing. She questioned why she’d ever gone. It seemed more a social club than anything else and these had been her friends with Richard. Who were they now that she was single?
Wanda considered moving closer to her daughter. Then she considered Manteo to be near her son, but she never actually called a realtor. Before she knew it one school semester was over and the kids were out for the holidays. Months had passed since Richard’s death but Wanda still felt set adrift with no idea where to even look for a new anchor.
She thought she would learn new things about herself in her solitude. Instead she gained twenty pounds (the number finally confirmed at her annual physical) and had a cleaner house. She felt no more independent. She certainly didn’t feel strong. And rather than grow closer to her faith during her struggles she pushed God to the other side of her wall suddenly suspicious of what else He might throw her way.
For the first time in memory, Wanda wrote down her New Year’s resolutions:
1. Join a gym. Lose the twenty pounds.
2. Find an initiative that gives me purpose.
Number one actually proved easy. By the end of the month she’d lost ten pounds and made a friend in her Saturday morning Lite Yoga class, a non church going, divorcee, who kept beer in her fridge. The two women started going to movies together or hosting one another for dinner. Wanda discovered she did indeed like Corona with her enchiladas and she could drink two without feeling a buzz.
But she couldn’t get a handle on the second resolution. When school resumed she spearheaded a Books for Africa campaign. But in her mind the attempt to teach sharing and global compassion felt empty. She knew that for every book the children sacrificed they had another twenty on their shelves at home.
She started sneaking into the back pew of a popular nondenominational church. She knew there was nothing wrong with her former church and that the intentions of her friends there had been right. It was her own commitment that had been shallow and she couldn’t afford to fall back into that rut. And a part of her missed church. If not for God, than for the familiarity of the ritual. She wanted to strike a balance where she felt at home, but not so comfortable as to be complacent, unsuspecting. And she wasn’t even sure what she meant by that. She collected her insight in pieces.
Wanda liked this new church but her newfound distrust kept her from gleaning too much meaning from the sermons. Wanda was used to getting teary-eyed over a special song or particularly powerful message, but not since the funeral. Her greatest source of comfort removed, Wanda’s perceptions and emotions were dislodged. She just felt hollow.
Her search for purpose continued. She’d scan the church bulletin for volunteer needs. Most didn’t appeal to her. She certainly did not want to be a Sunday school teacher for the teenagers, and she couldn’t provide childcare on Wednesday mornings for English as a Second Language students because she worked. But she could sleep overnight at the church when they hosted homeless women and their children for a week. When she read this announcement she called the number.
They needed her on a Friday night. She and another lady would be the church hosts. Their primary purpose was simply to enforce lights out, to lock up the building, and stay the night…. just in case. The lady on the phone hadn’t said just in case of what.
“Nothing ever happens,” she’d said. “It’s a really easy job.”
So that Friday Wanda arrived at church with her pillow and overnight bag. Four women and six kids sat scattered around two tables eating dinner when Wanda entered the large room. Church volunteers were scurrying around with dishes offering seconds of the grilled chicken or mashed potatoes. A small, gray haired woman entered with a tray of green Jell-O in yellow bowls and one little girl clapped her hands with anticipation.
Sectioned off by partitions were rooms for each family. This was their home for the week then they moved on to their next church host, rotating like this until they found a home or got kicked out the program for drug use or other breach of the rules. All of this had been explained to Wanda on the phone.
Wanda turned down a portion of Jell-O, found the partitioned room marked “volunteers” and placed her things on a cot. It didn’t appear as though the other over-night host had arrived and Wanda wasn’t sure what to do. She considered staying tucked behind the wall to read for awhile but didn’t want to seem unfriendly. When she peeked back out, she noticed two of the children had left the tables to amble near a section of the room scattered with toys. She approached the boy and tried to interest him in a wood puzzle. He laughed and ran away.
“Diante!” yelled a lady from across the room. “What I tell you about running in here?”
Wanda stayed near the toys demonstrating the various functions of buttons or knobs for the children who approached. By the end of the evening she determined who belonged with whom but learned little about their stories. The mothers ignored her as they shuffled back and forth from the bathroom preparing for bed. Intermittently they’d call for a child to brush her hair or finish his homework and the child would dart away.
At 10pm the other night host gave the ten-minute warning. By then all the children were in their beds. Fifteen minutes later the room was dark and quiet except for a few hushed whispers.
“This is a good crowd,” said the other volunteer. “Sometimes they fight the lights out thing.”
Wanda nodded.
“We still have to listen to make sure they don’t go out. Some of them will sneak outside and smoke even after curfew.”
Wanda lay alert in her bed, listening for the plodding of feet or the turn of the lock, but all she could hear was the clicking of the air conditioner when it kicked on or off. The last time she glanced at her watch was 11:20 and then she must have faded into sleep.
A repetitious wailing entered her dream and then slowly brought her out of it. She clicked on the small lamp next to her and put her wrist under the light. 2am. She whispered to the other volunteer, “Are you awake?”
Nothing.
Wanda waited for the reassuring sounds of a mother but none came. She slid her feet into her slippers.
Diante, the little boy Wanda had learned was not yet two, stood in the middle of the room, rubbing his eyes and wailing. He sounded scared, proving panic with volume.
Wanda couldn’t believe that his mother, or one of the other mothers hadn’t already scooped him up to quiet him. Could they possibly be sleeping through this?
Wanda assumed the boy had awakened to find his mother missing, perhaps in the bathroom, or outside smoking, and became alarmed. She knelt down in front of him.
“Shhhhhh. It’s ok. Let’s go find Mommy.” She took his hand and started towards the restrooms. His volume died down but his crying continued, shaking his little shoulders as he walked. Wanda bent over and picked him up.
“Baby, it’s ok. We’ll find her. I promise.” She opened the bathroom door and peered in, no one stood at the sink and the room sounded empty.
“Hello?” she called into the room. “I’ve got Diante with me. Is his mom in hear?” She paused and waited. Diante looked curious, as though he too were expecting a reply, but no one answered. Wanda looked at him.
“Don’t worry. She’s here somewhere.” Wanda balanced him on one hip as she reached for some paper towels to bat at his tear-streaked cheeks. He’d finished crying but had developed the hiccups.
She decided next to try outside. When she reached the door it was still locked which made her doubt her smoking suspicions, but maybe it had locked automatically and his mother had gotten stuck outside. Wanda found a box to prop the door and twisted it open. She stepped into the humid night air.
“Hello?” She repeated the word louder but she couldn’t see or hear anyone. Diante craned his neck to look down the sidewalk.
“Nope, not hear either, but we’ll keep looking,” Wanda said to him.
Wanda considered another bathroom, further away but still accessible from this part of the building. She asked Diante if he wanted to walk, but instead of answering he squeezed her tighter. It had been awhile since Wanda had carried a child for any length of time and she was beginning to feel Diante’s weight in her arms. Her twenty-month-old granddaughter weighed twenty-five pounds at her last doctor’s visit and this boy looked heavier. Diante nestled into her neck, and she guessed he shared her weariness.
At the next bathroom there was still no sign of his mother and Wanda began to feel worried. Now her pace quickened. She walked back to the door that led outside to peek out one more time. Still, nothing. She brought Diante to the table and chairs in the middle of the room and sat him on a chair. Now she felt like crying as she knelt down in front of him.
“I don’t know what to say, I don’t know where she is.”
Diante stared at her wide-eyed.
“Aren’t you tired? Should I just put you back in bed and hope she comes back?” Wanda mused out loud.
She pulled herself up onto the chair next to him and reached to take him into her lap. She set him facing her and rested his head on her chest. Slowly, as best she could in the cold metal fold-out chair, Wanda rocked him and softly sang, “Jesus loves you.” Diante shivered with a wide yawn then relaxed against her. She marveled at his trust and her eyes watered. Wanda held onto him in the dark room listening to his soft breathing, feeling his warmth. She lingered awhile longer before standing to replace him to his bed.
As she stepped into the partition she felt confused for a moment. A lady lying in the bed, sat upright.
“I must have the wrong room,” Wanda whispered stepping backward.
“Diante?” said the woman. “You can bring him here.”
As Wanda handed over the child she recognized that this was in fact the boy’s mother. Had she been there the whole time? Had she slept through the cries or ignored them? The cots had been pushed together, how could she have not heard him stumble from the bed in fear and panic? He’d been gone so long, hadn’t she felt his absence?
None of this made sense to Wanda. As she placed the boy back on the bed she revisited in her mind when she first heard Diante crying. He had been so loud, so needy. She shuffled past the partition and into the main room then rushed towards the outside door and stepped back into the dense air. The thought of this small boy’s cry, so pitiful, going unanswered, broke the dam of her tears. Her mind wouldn’t release the image of his face when she’d first found him, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of loneliness that crept through her for his sake, for her own.
She remained standing and crying, her back pressed against the door, but eventually she became aware of the low hum of insects, the splash of a passing car going through a puddle and her thoughts shifted. He had held onto her, seemed to believe in her simple willingness. He’d relaxed against her finding peace in her arms, of all places, in her arms. Wanda crossed her arms against herself and squeezed on her own shoulders before pulling in another breath of the thick evening. She squinted past the street lamps, concentrating on the starlight, and gathered more pieces.
